THE MYSTERY AND ROMANCE
OF
ALCHEMY AND PHARMACY

THE SCIENTIFIC PRESS, LTD.

THE MYSTERY AND ROMANCE
OF
ALCHEMY AND PHARMACY

BY
C. J. S. THOMPSON
AUTHOR OF “POISON ROMANCE AND POISON MYSTERIES,”
“THE CHEMIST’S COMPENDIUM,” “THE CULT OF BEAUTY,”
ETC., ETC.

LONDON
THE SCIENTIFIC PRESS, Limited
28 & 29 SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND, W.C.
1897

PREFACE.

It has been my endeavour in the following pages to sketch, however imperfectly, some phases of the romance and mystery that have surrounded the arts of medicine, alchemy, and pharmacy from the earliest period of which we have record down to the close of the eighteenth century. The influence of the past on the present is greater than we commonly suppose. In this age of rapid scientific progress and brilliant research, we are apt to overlook and lose sight of the patient labours of the early pioneers of science, many of whom laid the foundations of discoveries that have since proved of inestimable value to mankind. Hence the history of the past, whether in science or in art, is always worthy of study and attention.

My thanks are due to the Editor of the Pharmaceutical Journal for permission to reproduce several illustrations which appeared in its pages together with a portion of this work.

C. J. S. T

Liverpool, 1897.

CONTENTS.

• PART I.
• CHAPTER I.
• The Dawn of the Art of Healing.
• The foundation of the art of healing—The most ancient record of medicine and pharmacy—The Ebers Papyrus—Origin of the term pharmacist—Drugs used in ancient Egypt—Early Jewish medicines—The antiquity of medicine and alchemy in China—The Chinese and the Philosopher’s Stone—Ancient Chinese materia medica—The medical art in ancient Greece—The Grecian temples of medicine—Methods of treatment—The oath of Hippocrates pages [1]-[13]
• CHAPTER II.
• The Wizards of Early Greece.
• Tiresias—Abaris—Pythagoras—Epimenides—Empedocles—Aristras—Hermotimus pages [14]-[23]
• CHAPTER III.
• The Wizards of the Roman Empire.
• A Roman sorceress—Virgil’s sorceress—Canidia—A witches’ incantation pages [24]-[29]
• CHAPTER IV.
• The Fathers of Medicine.
• Æsculapius—Hippocrates—Diocles—Praxagoras—Chrysippus—Hierphilus—Erasistratus—Serapion—Asclepiades—Galen—His system of treatment—Medical practice in the fifth century—Alexander of Tralles—The fees of Roman practitioners—Votive offerings for health—Roman donaria—Roman temples of healing pages [30]-[38]
• CHAPTER V.
• The Early Age of Greek and Roman Pharmacy.
• Celsus—Roman pharmacy—Methods of administration—Antidotes—Grecian remedy for hydrophobia—Chemical bodies and drugs employed by the Greeks and Romans—Dioscorides—His work on materia medica—Ancient method of collecting opium—Preparation of wool fat—Drugs used in Pompeii and Herculaneum pages [39]-[46]
• CHAPTER VI.
• Alchemy—The Alchemists.
• Origin of the term chemistry—Practice of the hermetic science by the Egyptians—Al-Chindus—Geber—Rhazes—Merlin—St. Dunstan—Albertus Magnus—Vincent de Beauvais—Raymond Lulli—Arnauld de Villeneuve—Roger Bacon—Antonio Quainer—Discoveries made by the early alchemists—Eck—John Baptist Porta—Cornelius Agrippa—Dr. Dee—Symbols of the alchemists pages [47]-[63]
• CHAPTER VII.
• The Philosopher’s Stone.
• Alchemical research—Its objects—Supposed composition of the Philosopher’s Stone—Claimants to the discovery—The theories of Rhazes, Merlin and Bacon—Bacon’s definition of alchemy—Ripley’s process—The Elixir of Life—The theories of Paracelsus—His secret elixirs—Elixir Vitæ pages [64]-[71]
• CHAPTER VIII.
• The Black Art and Occult Sciences.
• The antiquity of magic—Early magicians and wise men—Variety of forms practised—Oneiromancy—Theurgy and Goetry—Historic dreams—Necromancy—Methods of evocation—Chiromancy—Origin of the practice—Astrology—Its antiquity—Famous astrologers pages [72]-[78]
• CHAPTER IX.
• The Art of Foretelling.
• Influence of the planets and signs of the Zodiac—Casting horoscopes—Methods of divination—Crystal gazing—Dactylomancy—Pyromancy pages [79]-[82]
• CHAPTER X.
• Black Magic.
• Practice of magic by the early alchemists—Demonology—Initiation of novices—Taking the oath—The ceremonial—Perfumes employed—Composition of the incense used—Black magic by burning—Witchcraft—Methods of practice—Trial of the Duchess of Gloucester—The “evil eye”—Apparitions in the sky—A witches’ Sabbath—Appearance of the devil—Origin of the word “witch”—Their initiation and pact pages [83]-[89]
• CHAPTER XI.
• Superstition and its Influence on Medicine.
• Origin of incantations and charms—The cure of disease by poetry and music—Ancient theory of the cause of disease—Precious stones as remedial agents—Influence of the planets on herbs—Survival of old superstitious customs—The “coral and bells”—Sympathetic powders—Curing by touch—Empirical nostrums—The doctrine of Signatories—Ancient superstitious practices pages [90]-[97]
• CHAPTER XII.
• Love Philtres.
• Composition of philtres—Roman love philtres—Law against their use—Greek Love philtres—Ingredients employed—Botanomancy—“Water of Magnanimity” pages [98]-[101]
• CHAPTER XIII.
• The Pioneers of Pharmacy and Botany—Physic Gardens.
• Drugs used by the Arabs—Avicenna—Basil Valentine—Paracelsus—His life and teaching—Van Helmont—Monastic Gardens—Mesué—Ebor-Taitor—The medical treatment of the monks—Hildegarde—Gilbert and Hernicus Arviell—Simon de Cordo—Peter de Crescenzi—Bartholomew Glanvil—Advent of printing—George Agricola—Conrad Gesner—Jacques Gohory—The Jardin des Plantes—William Davisson—Matthias of Lille—Andrew Cesalpin—The first pharmacopœia—The London Pharmacopœia—The Dublin Pharmacopœia—The British Pharmacopœia—The Chelsea Physic Garden—Its origin—Thomas Dover—The “quicksilver doctor”—His exploits pages [102]-[117]
• CHAPTER XIV.
• Amulets, Talismans and Charms.
• Their antiquity—Definition—Object of their use—Egyptian amulets—Grecian amulets—Roman amulets—Chinese amulets—Knightly talismans—Precious stones as talismans—Metallic amulets—Written amulets—Amulet rings—Curious articles used as amulets—Charms—The “Lee Penny”—The “Holy Hand”—Medical Charms—Early British charm—Toadstones—Medicinal virtues of the toad—Roman charm for prolonging life pages [118]-[137]
• CHAPTER XV.
• Monk Physicians—Itinerant Doctors—Surgery in the Middle Ages.
• Monk physicians and their methods of treatment—Early hospitals—Their originators—The first school of nurses—Medical faculties of the thirteenth century—Examinations for title of master physician and surgeon—Barber surgeons—Itinerant barbers in France—Credulity of the public—Medical art in the fifteenth century—Surgery in the time of the Crusades—Early tests for water—Methods of disinfection pages [138]-[146]
• CHAPTER XVI.
• Plant Lore—Drug Charms—Folk Medicine.
• The mystery of dragon’s blood—Charms and superstitious practises connected with dragon’s blood—Use of dragon’s blood by the ancients—Modern practitioners of magic—Magic properties attributed to the walnut—Sage—Rue—Henbane—Moon Wort—Solomon’s Seal—Anemone—Trefoil—St. John’s Wort—Dill—Thistle—House-leek—Pimpernell—Vervain—Magic wreathes—Hawkweed—Mountain Ash—Squill—Mandrake—Method of gathering the mandrake—Abrunes—The willow as a symbol of sorrow—Almonds—The bachelor’s button—The bean and nut—White hawthorn—Ferns and fern seeds—Leaves of peculiar shape—Black hellebore—Ceremonial rites observed when collecting the root—Peony—Forget-me-not—Elder pages [147]-[165]
• CHAPTER XVII.
• Mummies and their use in Medicine—The Unicorn.
• The art of embalming and its antiquity—Various processes employed—The cost of embalming—The practitioners of the art—The drugs and substances employed—Process used for the poorer people—The veneration of mummies by the Egyptians—Trade in mummies for use in medicine—Fictitious mummies—How to tell genuine mummy—The dose and medicinal properties—The price in 1685—Varieties of mummies used in medicine—Process for preparing artificial mummy—Methods of administration—Human fat and its medicinal properties—Human skulls and their value—Human bones and other animal substances as remedial agents—The Unicorn—Its appearance described—Properties attributed to the horn—Where the horn was obtained—The value of the horn—A horn presented to King Charles I.—Virtues attributed to it pages [166]-[174]
• CHAPTER XVIII.
• Origin of the Society of Apothecaries—Apothecaries and their Practice—Apothecaries and their Bills—Curious Remedies—A Drug Price List of 1685.
• Earliest record of an apothecary in England—Powers granted to the College of Physicians—Foundation of the Society of Apothecaries—Nicholas Culpepper—History of the Society—Charter granted—The first hall and council house—Examinations found necessary—The apothecaries and the druggists—The glass tax—Rules for the guidance of apothecaries—The sale of drugs and poisons restricted in Glasgow—A cavalier’s experience of apothecaries and their treatment—His doctor’s bill and his opinion on it—Apothecaries’ bills—Favourite methods of administration—Animal materia medica—Broth of viper—Curious remedies employed—Drugs used by the physician to King Edward I.—Physicking an ambassador—An apothecary’s advertisement—Physicians’ fees—Midwife’s fee in the seventeenth century—Ancient pharmaceutical preparations and their origin—Mediæval method of improving the complexion—Human blood as a remedial agent—Celtic recipes—A remedy for drunkenness—Oil of red dog and its preparation—Strange recipes—The “everlasting pill”—Cleopatra and the asp—Ancient method of changing the colour of the hair—The aloe of Scripture—Pharmacy 200 years ago—The cupidity of the apothecaries—Denouncing the apothecaries—Herb-women of London—The price of bottles in 1656—Popular preparations—A drug price-list of 1685 pages [175]-[211]
• CHAPTER XIX.
• Pharmacy in the Time of Queen Elizabeth.
• An apothecary’s shop in the time of Queen Elizabeth—Description of the interior—The customers—Apothecaries’ prescriptions—Apothecaries’ guilds and their injunctions as to prayer—The itinerant dentist—Medicaments used in the time of Queen Elizabeth pages [212]-[220]
• CHAPTER XX.
• Famous Empirics and their Nostrums.
• Early methods of introducing a nostrum—The origin of quack medicines—The Elixir of Life—The Collyrium of Danares—Sympathetic Powder—Hoffman’s Water of Magnanimity—Dutch Drops—Eau Médicinale de Husson—Dr. James’ fever powder—Count St. Germain’s tea—Cagliostro’s Balm of Life—How the Count was confounded—Count Thün of Leipzig—Dr. Brodum and his “Nervous Cordial”—Dr. Solomon and his “Balm of Gilead”—How “the doctor” was punished—Perkin’s Tractors—An old ballad pages [221]-[228]
• CHAPTER XXI.
• The Antiquity and History of the Mortar.
• The origin of the mortar—Derivation of the name—Primitive mortars—Grain crushers—Egyptian mortars—Antiquity of the mortar in Africa—A Cingalese mortar—Roman mortaria—Manufactories of mortaria in Britain—Stone mortars—Wooden querns—Origin of the pestle and mortar as a trade sign—Iron mortars—Bell-metal mortars—Brass mortars—Copper mortars—Marble mortars—Modern mortars pages [229]-[237]
• PART II.
• Alchemy and Pharmacy in Literature.
• CHAPTER I.
• PAGES
• Chaucer [239]-[252]
• CHAPTER II.
• Shakespeare [253]-[277]
• CHAPTER III.
• Spenser [278]-[282]
• CHAPTER IV.
• Goethe [283]-[291]
• CHAPTER V.
• Le Sage [292]-[299]
• CHAPTER VI.
• Ben. Jonson [300]-[302]
• CHAPTER VII.
• Sir Walter Scott [303]-[305]
• CHAPTER VIII.
• Dumas [306]-[311]
• CHAPTER IX.
• Reade [312]-[321]
• CHAPTER X.
• Dickens, Thackeray [322]-[328]
• CHAPTER XI.
• Marryat [329]-[335]

ALCHEMY AND PHARMACY:
THEIR MYSTERY AND ROMANCE.

PART I.

CHAPTER I.
THE DAWN OF THE ART OF HEALING.

The birth of the art of healing goes back to a period of great antiquity. The instinct that first led man to utilise the fruits of the earth for his bodily sustenance, may perchance have suggested the herbs which grew around him as a means of alleviating the ills of his flesh.

It is a matter of doubt whether medicine as an art was first practised in Egypt or China; from recent research probably the former, as at the time of the writing of the Ebers Papyrus, B.C. 1550, the Egyptians had a considerable knowledge of the use of herbs and other bodies for medicinal purposes.

The art of medicine had two foundations—empiricism and superstition—which have influenced it from its birth down to the present time.

The most ancient record of medicine and pharmacy known was discovered at Kahun in 1889, near the pyramid of Illahun in the ruins of an ancient town, which had apparently been inhabited by the builders of the pyramid. It dates from the twelfth dynasty, B.C. 2700 to 2500, more than a thousand years before the Exodus.

Besides containing instructions for midwives, it includes numerous formulæ for the treatment of various complaints, composed of such very homely articles as beer, cow’s milk, honey, oil, onions, herbs, dates, and other fruits.

The Ebers Papyrus, which was found reposing between the legs of a mummy, throws a light on ancient Egyptian pharmacy, and was written in the reign of King Amenhotep I., of the eighteenth dynasty. It commences as follows: “Beginning of the chapter of applying medicaments to every part of the patient.

“I have come forth from Heliopolis with the mighty ones of the Temple of the Sun, the wielders of protection, the princes of eternity.

“Rescuing (?) I have come forth from Sais with the Mothers of the Gods, who have given me their protection.

“I have magic formulæ made by the Universal Lord to drive out the stroke of god and goddess, the Male Death and Female Death, et cetera,[1] that is in this my head, in this my neck, in this my shoulder, in this my flesh, in these my limbs, to punish the above-named enchanters (?) who introduce disturbance into this my flesh.”

Such formulæ, evidently for recitation during the treatment, continue for a page and a half. The book has thus no general title, but plunges at once into the mysteries of the profession.

“Beginning of the mystery of the physician who knows the motion of the heart. There are vessels in it to every limb. When any physician, doctor, or amulet-maker puts his fingers upon the top of the head, upon the occiput, upon the hands, upon the chest, upon the arms, upon the legs, he communicates (?) with the heart, for its vessels extend to every limb, wherefore it is called the starting-point of every limb.”

The following may be taken as an example of the recipes given in the manuscript:—

“A remedy for the belly that is painful: Cummin ¹∕₆₄ hin, goose-grease ¹∕₈ hin, milk ¹∕₁₆ hekt; cool, strain, and drink”. The hin is about 29 cubic inches, and the ¹∕₁₆ hekt 18 cubic inches; the prescription is thus roundly ¹∕₂ cubic inch of cummin, and 4 of goose fat, in half a pint of milk.

This papyrus contains 110 pages, each page consisting of about twenty-two lines of bold Hieratic writing. It may be described as an encyclopædia of medicine as known and practised by the Egyptians of the eighteenth dynasty, and it contains prescriptions of all kinds of diseases—some borrowed from Syrian medical lore, and some of such great antiquity that they are ascribed to the mythological ages, when the gods yet reigned personally on earth. Among others is given the recipe for an application whereby Osiris cured Ra of a headache. In this papyrus is an example of an old Egyptian diagnosis and therapeutics, as follows: “When thou findest any one with a hardness in his re-hit (pit of the stomach), and when, after eating, he feels a pressure on his intestines, his hit is swollen and he feels bad in walking like one who suffers from heat in his back, then observe him when he lies stretched out, and if thou findest his intestines hot and a hardness in his re-hit, say unto thyself, This is a disease of the liver. Then prepare for thyself according to the secrets of the science from the plant pa-che-test and dates, mix them, and give in water.”

It also contains numerous recipes for the treatment of diseases, for internal and external use. Most of the drugs mentioned are derived from indigenous plants, and such chemical bodies as alum, salt, nitre, and sulphate of copper are included in some of the prescriptions.

It seems probable that most of the medicines used in these early times were first tried as foods; and those which when taken in large quantities or in special conditions influenced the functions of the body, these and others found to be too strong for dietetic use were relegated to the books of medicine.

As an instance of this, the leaves and seeds of the castor oil plant and the astringent sycamore fig are included in many recipes, but Maspero states that there is little doubt that castor oil was taken regularly in food in the time of the Pharaohs, and at the present time it is a favourite adjunct to the salads of the Egyptian fellaheen. The same writer thinks the Egyptians began by eating every kind of food which the country produced, and so became acquainted with their therapeutic properties.

In another papyrus said to have been written about the time of King Chata of the first dynasty, who reigned B.C. 4000, the following prescription for promoting the growth of the hair is given:—

Dr. v. Oefele states of pharmacy before the time of Hippocrates, that although the practice of medicine was not separated from pharmacy among the Greeks and Romans, there was such a separation among the ancient Egyptians, from whom the distinction was handed down to the Copts, and by them to the Arabians; and, in fact, that the term pharmacist is probably of Egyptian origin, being derived from Ph-ar-maki, which signifies the preparation of medicine from drugs. The Egyptian pharmaki who were engaged in that occupation belonged to the higher social ranks of writers or academically-educated persons, comprising also the priests, physicians, statesmen, and military commanders.

The Jews were indebted to Egypt for their primary ideas of medicine, but they cast away the ideas of demonology and magic which clouded what was good in the practice of Egypt. The Talmud recommends onions for worms, and wine, pepper, and asafœtida for flatulency. The Talmudists are responsible for calling the earth, air, fire, and water elementary bodies. In the middle ages the Jews rendered service to the healing art, and had a large share in the scientific work connected with the Arab domination of Spain.

In China the use of drugs goes back to a very remote age, and alchemy was practised by the Chinese long previous to its being known in Europe. For two centuries prior to the Christian era, and for four or more subsequent, the transmutation of the base metals into gold, and the composition of the elixir of immortality, were questions ardently studied by the Chinese. It is, moreover, a matter of history that intercourse between China and Persia was frequent both before and after the Mahomedan conquest of the latter country; that embassies from Persia as well as from the Arabs, and even from the Greeks in Constantinople, visited the court of the Chinese emperor in Shansi; that Arab traders settled in China, and that there was frequent intercourse by sea between China and the Persian Gulf; and lastly, that China had an extensive alchemical literature anterior to the period when alchemy was studied in the West. All these facts go to prove that the ancient science known as alchemy was originated by the Chinese, and not by the disciples of Mahomed, who only acquired the knowledge at second hand.[2]

It is somewhat curious that while the alchemists of the West were always in doubt as to what constituted the true Philosopher’s Stone, the Chinese seemingly had no doubt as to its identity. Cinnabar was regarded by the early alchemists and philosophers of that nation as the wonderful body which was supposed to have the mysterious power of converting other metals into gold, and when used as a medicine would prolong life for an indefinite period. Ko-hung, author of the Pau-p’uh-tsi p’ian, a work of the fourth century, and undoubtedly genuine, gives various mineral and vegetable productions possessing in different degrees the properties of an elixir vitæ. In one paragraph of this work he states: “When vegetable matter is burnt it is destroyed, but when the Ian-sha (Cinnabar) is subjected to heat it produces mercury. After passing through other changes it returns to its original form. It differs widely, therefore, from vegetable substances, and hence it has the power of making men live for ever and raising them to the rank of the genii. He who knows the doctrine, is he not far above common men, etc.?”

In materia medica the knowledge of the Chinese was much in advance of the nations of the West, and their great herbal, entitled Pun-Isaun-Kang-Mûh, written by Le-she-chin in the middle of the sixteenth century, shows the discernment possessed by these curious people. This work consists of forty thin octavo volumes, the first three of which contain woodcuts of many of the minerals, plants, and animals referred to in the text. The woodcuts alone number 1100, and the work itself is divided into fifty-two divisions. The antiquity of the practice of medicine among the Chinese may be gathered from the fact that there exists a work entitled A Treatise from the Heart on the Small-pox, which was written during the dynasty of Icheon, B.C. 1122. In this work the eruption is described, and some kind of inoculation is also referred to as a remedy.

But it is to Greece that we have to look for the birth of medical art in the West, its practice by the priests being of great antiquity. The earliest record of a temple of medicine is of one erected in the Peloponnesus in the year B.C. 1130, or about fifty years after the fall of Troy. Other temples or centres of the healing art gradually sprang up, and round each of those clustered a little school of students. There were the temple of Health at Pergamus, the temple of Hygeia at Cytea, and the temples of Æsculapius at Cos and Epidamus, where the famous statue of Æsculapius stood. The father of ancient medicine, Hippocrates, graduated as a student of Cos, and Galen is said to have been at Epidamus.

It was in the temple of Æsculapius at Greece that any record of medicine was first kept, the names of diseases and their cures being registered on tablets of marble. The priests and priestesses, who were the guardians of the temple, prepared the remedies and directed their application, and thus commenced the practice of physic as a regular profession.

These official persons were ambitious to pass as the legitimate descendants of Æsculapius, and therefore assumed the title of the Asclepiades. The writings of Pausanius, Plutarch, and others abound with accounts of the artifices of these early practitioners. Aristophanes mentions the dexterity and promptitude with which they collected and put into their bags the offerings on the altar.

The patients were wont to repose on the skins of sacrificed rams in order to procure celestial visions. As soon as they were supposed to be asleep, a priest, clothed in the dress of Æsculapius, imitating his manner, and accompanied by the daughters of the god (that is, by young actresses well up in their parts), entered and solemnly delivered a medical opinion. The student sat at the feet of the philosopher of his choice, and after a certain period and course of probation, was granted the rights of priest and physician to practise as a teacher and healer.

They had their code and ethics of a standard almost equal to those of to-day, and their knowledge of surgery, and the use of the herbs and plants which grew around them, was not a little.

Entering on their novitiate at their chosen temple or school, they were required to make a protestation or oath, of which the following is the one made by Hippocrates:—

“I, Hippocrates, do now promise and protest to the great god Apollo and his two daughters Hygeia and Panadie, and also to all the gods and goddesses, to observe the contents of this oath or tables wherein the oath is carved, written, or engraved, so far as I can possibly, and so far as my wit or understanding shall be able to direct me, viz., I yield myself tributary and debtor to the master and doctor, who hath instructed me and showed me this science and doctrine, even as much or rather more than to my father who hath begotten me, and that I shall live and communicate with him, and follow him in all necessities which I shall know him to have, so far as my power shall permit and my goods extend. Also that I shall love and cherish his children as my brother’s, and his progeny as my own. Further, that I shall teach, show and demonstrate the said science without reward or covenant, and that I shall give all the canons, rules and precepts freely, truly and faithfully to my master, his children as to my own, without hiding or unacting anything, and to all other scholars who shall make the same oath or protestation, and to no others. Also that in practising and using my science towards the sick, I shall use only things necessary, so far as I am able, and as my spirit and good understanding shall give unto me, and that I shall cure the sick as speedily as I may without dilating or prolonging the malady, and that I shall not do anything against equity for hatred, anger, envy or malice to any person whatsoever. Moreover, that I shall minister no poison, neither counsel nor teach poison, nor the composing thereof to any. Also that I shall not give nor cause to be given, nor contend that anything be applied to a woman breeding, to destroy and make her void her fruit. But I shall protest to keep my life and science purely, sincerely and inviolably, without deceit, fraud or guile. And that I shall not cut or incise any person having the stone, but shall leave the same to those who are expert in it. And, furthermore, that I shall not enter into the patient’s house lest with purpose to heal him, and that I shall patiently sustain the injuries, reproaches, and loathsomeness of sick men and other base railings, and that I shall eschew, as far as I may, all venereous lasciviousness. Moreover, I protest, be it man, woman, or servant who is my patient, to cure them of all things, that I may see or hear either in mind or manner, and I shall not betray that which should be concealed or hidden, but keep inviolable with silence; neither reveal any creature under pain of death. And therefore I beseech our gods that observing this protestation, promise, and vow entirely and inviolably, all things in my life, in my art, and science, may succeed securely, healthfully, and prosperously to me, and in the end eternal glory.

“And to him that shall violate, transgress, or become perjured, that the contrary may happen unto him, viz., misery, calamities, and continual maladies.”

We have here principles laid down which would do honour to any medical body, and which show the highly civilised condition and the excellent moral teaching of the early Greek philosophers and priests.

CHAPTER II.
THE WIZARDS OF EARLY GREECE.

One of the earliest magicians or soothsayers of which we have record out of the era of mythology was Tiresias. He lived in the times of Œdipus and the war of the seven chiefs against Thebes. For having offended the gods he was visited with blindness, but being repentant, tradition states they recompensed him for this affliction by endowing him with the gift of prophecy and the act of divination. He is also said to have been able to hold communion with the feathered world, and to have power over the spirits of the dead, whom he could compel to appear and reply to his inquiries. His incantations and spells were supposed to be irresistible, and he could foretell future events by signs from fire, smoke, and other methods of divining.

Abaris, a native of Scythia, was another magician of renown. There is no exact record of the time in which he lived, but he is represented by some as having constructed the Palladium which protected Troy from its enemies for a long time. Other authors declare he was a friend of Pythagoras, who flourished some 600 years later.

According to Herodotus, he travelled over the world with an arrow, eating nothing during his journey. By others it is said the arrow was presented to him by Apollo, and that upon it he rode through the air, and travelled over lands, seas, mountains, and other inaccessible places. But from all accounts his repute as a magician and seer is confirmed. He is said to have foretold earthquakes, allayed storms and pestilence, cured disease by charms and incantations, and was generally revered for his power and command over the dwellers in the unseen world.

Pythagoras, one of the most notable magicians in early history, was born about the year B.C. 586, and lived during the time of Cyrus and Darius Hystaspes, of Crœsus, of Pisistratus, of Polycrates, and Amasis King of Egypt. He was renowned not only as a philosopher but as a leader and politician, and was learned in all branches of science then known. The early part of his life was spent in Egypt, but he also travelled in order to gather experience and knowledge until he reached the age of forty years.

Afterwards he founded a school, where he lectured and instructed a large number of followers who were attracted by his wisdom and learning. He divided his pupils into two classes: the neophytes, to whom were explained the elementary and general principles of his philosophy, while the advanced were admitted into his entire confidence and formed a brotherhood, who threw their property into a common stock and lived together.

During the latter part of his life he is said to have lived in Magna Græcia, where he carried on his studies and made some of his great discoveries. He was a profound geometrician, and two great theorems, one still known as the Pythagorean, are ascribed to him. He propounded the doctrine that the earth is a planet of spherical form, and the sun the centre of the planetary system.

His philosophy prescribed and taught a total abstinence from everything which had animal life, and temperance in all things, together with the subjection of the appetites of the body. By this strict discipline, he seems to have obtained almost complete control over the wills and minds of his followers, from whom he demanded the utmost docility. Preparatory to entering on his novitiate, the pupil was strictly examined by the master as to his principles, habits, and intentions. The tone of his voice, his manner of speaking, his walk, gestures, and the lines of his face and the expression of his eyes, were all carefully observed, and only if all these features were satisfactory was he admitted as a probationer. After this interview the master withdrew from the sight of the pupil, who could then enter on his novitiate of three and five, in all eight years, during which time he was not permitted to look on the master, but only hear him speak from behind a curtain, and he was enjoined to preserve the strictest silence.

To add to his mystery and authority, Pythagoras is said to have hid himself during the day from his pupils, and was only visible to them after the night had come on. He is described as having a most imposing and majestic appearance, with a grave and awe-inspiring countenance. When he came forth he appeared in a long garment of the purest white, with his long beard flowing, and a garland upon his head.

He allowed his followers to believe he was one of the gods, and he is said to have told Abaris that he resumed human form so that he might win the confidence of man.

Doubtless, owing to his great attainments and his superiority to the men of his time, he considered himself more divine than human, and he claimed to have miraculous endowments. Those who were not of his followers ascribed the stories related of him to magic, which probably, like other philosophers, he studied.

Among other stories which tradition has handed down concerning Pythagoras are the following: He professed to have appeared in different ages in various human forms—first as Æthalides, the son of Mercury, and then as Euphorbu, who slew Patroclus at the siege of Troy, and as other individuals also.

He is said to have tamed a bear by whispering in its ear, and prevailed on it to feed on vegetables alone. He called also an eagle down from its flight, causing it to sit on his hand as if quite tame. When Abaris addressed him as one of the heavenly host, he convinced him that he was indeed a celestial being by showing him his thigh of gold, which also he exhibited to sceptical pupils. At another period he absented himself from his associates in Italy for a year: when he re-appeared he stated he had been sojourning in the infernal regions, and gave them wonderful descriptions of the strange things he had seen there.

These and many other fabulous stories are related of this singular man, which prove him to have been as wily as he was wise.

One curious rule by which he bound his pupils is worth mentioning. At the end of their novitiate, if it was discovered that their intellectual faculties were too weak to grapple with the intricacies of his theories and problems, they were expelled the community; the double of the property they had contributed to the common stock was refunded to them; a monument inscribed with their names was placed in the meeting-place of the community, and they were considered as dead by the brotherhood.

It is easy to imagine with what feelings these measures would be regarded by some who were called to submit to them, and so they eventually proved the cause of the break-up of the Pythagorean school.

Cylon, a man of great wealth of Crotona, conceived a great partiality for Pythagoras, and became a novice with Perialus, and submitted to all the severities of the school. They passed through the three years of probation and five years of silence, and were received into the familiarity of the master. But after they had delivered their wealth into the common stock, Pythagoras pronounced them to be deficient in intellectual power, or for some other reason most probably they were expelled. A tablet inscribed with their names was set up, and they were pronounced dead to the school.

Cylon, who was a man of excitable and violent temperament, became highly incensed at this treatment, and resolved on vengeance. Collecting a band of followers, which probably included a large number of rejected students, they surrounded the school of the master and set it on fire. Forty people are said to have perished in the flames, but Pythagoras with two of his pupils escaped to Metapontum, where he took refuge in the Temple of the Muses. The strife fomented by Cylon broke out afresh, and he was closely besieged in the temple by his enemies. The rioting continued, and as no provisions could be conveyed to him, he finally perished with hunger, according to Laertius, after forty days’ abstinence.

Thus ended Pythagoras, a man of undoubted genius, and in knowledge much in advance of his time. Although his teachings were mixed up with considerable artifice and deception, he ranks, as one of the greatest of the Greek philosophers.

Epimenides was a native of Crete, and probably lived before the time of Pythagoras. He was credited with marvellous performances from a very early age, and is said when quite a lad to have retired to a cave and slept for fifty-seven years. He then returned to his father’s house, which he found in the possession of a new tenant, and the family disappeared. At length he came across his brother, who had grown into an old man, who after some time acknowledged him.

On this story becoming known, he was accounted a favourite of the gods, and he professed to be endowed with supernatural gifts.

He made it known that he was supplied with food by the nymphs, and that he was exempt from the usual necessities imposed on the body by Nature. He boasted that he could separate his soul from his body and recall it as he thought fit. He professed to have dealings with the unseen world, and would exorcise evil spirits or work spells. He had great renown as a seer, and his prophecies were regarded as direct messages from the gods. But the great act of his life was his delivery of Athens from a great pestilence after the rebellion of Cylon. The plague, which had almost decimated the city, could not be stopped, and the Athenian Senate, after much deliberation, resolved to send for Epimenides, who was at that time in Crete. A special vessel was placed under the command of one of the first citizens of the State, who was commissioned to bring the wise magician.

On his arrival at Athens he at once set to work with solemn rites and ceremonials. He commanded that a number of black and white sheep should be led to the Areopagus, then be let loose and allowed to wander whither they wished. Certain persons were instructed to follow them and mark the spot where they lay down, on which place the animal was sacrificed to the local deity. In this manner, it is recorded, the plague was stayed. According to some writers he also sacrificed human victims. Although pressed by the Athenian Senate to take a recompense for his services, Epimenides is said to have refused all gifts, stipulating only that there should be perpetual peace between the Athenians and the people of Gnossus, his native city. He died shortly afterwards, at the reputed age of 157 years.

Empedocles was a distinguished magician, orator, and poet, and was born in Agrigentum, Sicily. He was a follower of Pythagoras, and probably received instruction from his successors. He was credited with miraculous powers, and to have been able to restore the dead to life. He was skilled in medicine and the use of herbs, and was indeed a general benefactor to the citizens of his native place, where he was almost worshipped as a god. Like other philosophers of his time, he was inordinately vain, but was undoubtedly a man of great intelligence, and conferred immense benefits on his fellow-creatures. His belief in the power of magic is shown in the following words he was wont to address to his students: “By my instructions you shall learn medicines that are powerful to cure disease and reanimate old age; you shall be able to calm the savage winds which lay waste the labours of all the husbandmen, and, when you will, shall send forth the tempest again; you shall cause the skies to be fair and serene; or, once more, shall draw down refreshing showers, reanimating the fruits of the earth; nay, you shall recall the strength of the dead man when he has already become the victim of Pluto”.

Of himself he said: “I mix with you a god, no longer a mortal, and am everywhere honoured by you, as is just; crowned with fillets and fragrant garlands, adorned with which, when I visit populous cities, I am revered by both men and women, who follow me by ten thousands, inquiring the road to boundless wealth, seeking the gift of prophecy and who would learn the marvellous skill to cure all kinds of diseases”.

Of other wizards of early Greece, Herodotus mentions Aristras, a poet of Proconnesus, who is said to have mysteriously disappeared from the earth for 340 years, and then appeared again at Metapontum and commanded the citizens to erect a statue to him. Also Hermotimus, who was reputed to have the power of separating his soul from his body at will. But little is known beyond the merest tradition of these worthies.

CHAPTER III.
THE WIZARDS OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

The Roman philosophers, like the Greeks, claimed to possess occult powers, and the practitioners of magic and sorcery were numerous during the time of the Empire. We have a graphic description of the incantations of a Roman sorceress in the story of Dido. Deserted by Æneas, she resolves on self-destruction. To delude her sister as to her secret purpose she sends for a priestess from the gardens of the Hesperides, pretending that her object is to effect the return of her lover by means of certain magical incantations. The priestess, who is invested with magical powers, can call up the spirits of the dead, cause the solid earth to rock and quake, and the trees of the forest to descend from the mountains. On the arrival of the sorceress, she commands that a funeral pyre shall be erected in the interior court of the palace, and that the arms of Æneas, what remains of his attire, and the marriage bed in which Dido had received him, shall be placed upon it. The pyre is to be hung round with garlands and branches of cypress, and the whole crowned with a picture of Æneas and his sword.

Altars were placed around, and the priestess, with dishevelled hair, cried aloud with terrible charms upon her three hundred gods, upon Erebus, Chaos, and the three-faced Hecate. The waters of Avernus were then sprinkled about, and certain magical herbs that had been cut by moonlight with a sickle of brass. The priestess had with her the excrescence which is found upon the forehead of a new-cast foal, of the size of a dried fig, a talisman of great power.

Dido is then called upon to approach, and, with her robe drawn up exposing one bare foot, she makes the circle of the altars, embracing them successively, and breaks over each a consecrated cake. The pyre is lit, and the charm is supposed to be complete.

But all the power and the elaborate ritual prescribed by the sorceress were of no avail. Æneas returns not, and the broken-hearted Dido finally stabs herself and dies.

Many prodigies are interspersed throughout the early history of Rome, and most of the acts of these people were surrounded with a halo of superstition natural at the time, and doubtless largely exaggerated. Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and Lucan all allude to the belief in and the practice of sorcery and magic by the Romans.

In the eighth eclogue of Virgil we have a detailed description of a Roman sorceress. She is introduced by the poet as giving directions to her assistant as to the working of certain charms. Her object (a common one apparently at that time) is to recall Daphnis, whom she calls her husband, to return once more to her arms. The assistant is directed to burn vervain and frankincense, and the highest efficacy is ascribed to a solemn chant, which is capable of calling down the moon from its sphere or making the cold-blooded snake burst in the field, and was the means by which Circe turned the companions of Ulysses into beasts. The image of Daphnis is then ordered to be thrice bound round with fillets of three colours, the assistant at the same time repeating the words, “Thus I bind the fillets of Venus,” and then paraded about a prepared altar.

An image of clay and one of wax are placed before the same fire; and as the image of clay hardens, so does the heart of Daphnis harden towards his new mistress; and as the figure of wax softens, so is the heart of the ex-lover made tender towards the sorceress. A sacred cake is then broken over the image, and crackling laurels burnt before it. She prays that as the wanton heifer pursues the steer through woods and glens till at length, worn out with fatigue, she lies down on the oozy reeds by the banks of the stream, and the night dew will not even drive her away, so Daphnis may be led on after her for ever with inextinguishable love. The relics of his belongings are then buried beneath the threshold. She bruises poisonous herbs of resistless virtue, which had been gathered in the kingdom of Pontus, herbs which enabled him who gave them to turn himself into a hungry wolf prowling amidst the forests, to call up ghosts from the grave, and to translate the ripened harvest from the field where it grew to the lands of another. The ashes of these herbs are cast over her head into the running stream, while she must not look behind her.

At length the sorceress begins to despair and cries, “Daphnis heeds not my incantations, heeds not the gods”. She looks again, and perceives the ashes on the altar are glowing and emitting sparks of fire. Her faithful house dog barks before the door. “Can these things be,” she exclaims, “or do lovers dream what they desire? It is not so! The real Daphnis comes; I hear his steps; he has left the deluding town; he hastens to my longing arms!”

In the works of Horace an interesting description of a witches’ incantation is also given, the details of which it is instructive to compare with those given by other writers.

Four sorceresses are assembled in conclave, the chief being Canidia, with three assistants, in order to work a charm by means of which a youth named Varus, for whom Canidia had conceived a passion, may be compelled to reciprocate her affections.

Canidia, with the locks of her dishevelled hair twined round with venomous and deadly serpents, orders the wild fig tree and the funeral cypress to be rooted up from the sepulchres on which they grew, and these, together with the egg of a toad smeared with blood, the plumage of the screech owl, various herbs brought from Thessaly and Georgia, and bones torn from the jaws of a famished dog, to be burnt in flames fed with perfumes from Colchis. One assistant, whose hair stands stiff and erect like the quills of the sea-hedgehog or the bristles of a hunted boar, sprinkles the ground with drops from the Avernus, while another, who is reputed to have had the faculty of conjuring the stars and moon down from heaven, assists in other ways.

The fourth witch is busy digging a hole with a spade, in which is to be plunged up to his chin the beardless youth stripped of his purple robe—the emblem of his noble descent—and naked, that from his marrow, already dry, and his liver (when at length his eyeballs, long fixed on the still renovated food which is withheld from his famished jaws, have no longer the power to discern), may be concreted the love potion from which the witches promise themselves the most wonderful results.

Canidia, unmoved by his sufferings, works herself into a great rage, and calls upon the night and the morn to help in her infamous incantation. But her victim manages to evade destruction by means of some magical antidote. She then resolves to prepare a still more powerful charm, exclaiming, “Sooner shall the sky be swallowed up in the sea and the earth be stretched a covering over both, than thou, my enemy, shalt not be wrapped in the flames of love as subtle and tenacious as those of burning pitch”.

CHAPTER IV.
THE FATHERS OF MEDICINE.

Though Æsculapius is said to have lived so near to the time of the Trojan war, yet the Greeks knew very little about him. The superstition of the time gave him a position among the gods, and as he was adored under the character of the genius of physic, it came at last to be doubted whether he was ever a mortal; consequently his priests were obliged for their own sakes to make themselves masters of all the physic that the master could teach, that they might be qualified to give advice to those who applied to them; their prescriptions passed for the suggestions of the gods, the cures for the miraculous. But both diseases and remedies were carefully recorded. Strabo tells us that from these registers in the temple of Æsculapius at Cos, Hippocrates formed his plan for a proper diet.

Hippocrates, the wise physician and father of medicine, was according to Soranus the son of Heraclides and Phænaretes, descended from Hercules and Æsculapius. He was a Coan by birth, and was first instructed by his father, and then by Herodicus, and Democritus of Abdua, the philosopher. He flourished at the time of the Peloponnesian war, and after being instructed in physic and the arts, left his own country for Thessaly, where his fame soon became known, even as far as Persia. He was sent for by Perdiccás, King of Macedonia, who was then thought to be consumptive, but Hippocrates diagnosed it to be a disease of the mind, and soon cured the king. He is also said to have delivered his own country from a war with the Athenians by prevailing upon the Thessalians to come to their assistance, for which he received great honours from the Coans. He taught his art with great candour and liberality to those who were desirous to learn, and at length died full of honours, it is said, in his ninetieth year, and was buried between Gyrton and Larissa. A quaint old tradition states that at his tomb a swarm of bees settled and made their honey for a long time, with which children troubled with aphthas, anointed by their nurses at the grave, were easily cured.

He was by no means covetous of money, but grave in his behaviour and a lover of Greece, as appears from his curing those of that nation with the utmost diligence, and freeing many of their cities from the plague, for which he acquired great honours.

At first the art of healing was accounted a branch of philosophy, so that the cure of diseases and the study of nature owed their rise to the same persons. Among the many philosophers skilled in the art the most celebrated were Pythagoras, Empedocles, Democritus, and Hippocrates of Cos. After them came Diodes the Carystian, Praxagoras, and Chrysippus, with Hierphilus and Erasistratus, many of whom practised their art in entirely different ways. At this period physic was divided into three schools; the first cured by diet, the second by medicines, the third by manual operations. Those who treated by dietetic methods endeavoured to extend their views farther with the assistance of natural philosophy. Then came Serapion, the apostle of practice and experience, and afterwards Asclepiades, who worked a revolution in medical science as then practised.

The knowledge of both surgery and medicine even in the time of Celsus is very remarkable, and many of the forms of administration of medicine are employed at the present day. The enema was largely used by the ancients, a common one being hydromel, described by Dioscorides as being made by mixing two parts of water to one of honey; sea-water was also employed for the same purpose, and Celsus recommends the copious drinking of hot water as a laxative remedy.

Asclepiades was the originator of massage and friction, and in his book of general remedies describes his treatment, which is similar to that performed to-day. Poultices of meal of various descriptions were commonly employed, linseed or fenugreek being the favourite media.

Asclepiades studied in Alexandria, and after practising in Greece and Asia Minor, finally settled in Rome in the early part of the first century B.C. Here he soon met with success, and established a reputation for great skill. He was the physician and friend of Cicero, and probably also the instructor of Lucretius in the Epicurean philosophy, of which he was an enthusiastic advocate.

He believed the body to be composed of atoms or particles, with spaces between, through which, like a sieve, various atoms of other shapes were continually passing in and out of the body.

In practice he believed in curing his patients with as little discomfort as possible, which doubtless helped to make him popular. He was averse to the employment of violent remedies and the excessive use of emetics and purgatives so much favoured by his fellow-practitioners.

He advocated the use of music as a soothing agent, and was strongly in favour of bathing frequently and of massage.

He strongly believed in wine as a remedial agent, which it has been said may have accounted for his popularity with the Roman ladies, with whom as a physician he was in great demand. He lived to a very advanced age, and died it is stated from the effects of a fall.

Galen, born at Pergamus in the year A.D. 131, studied in the school of Alexandria, which then had a considerable reputation, and there he formulated his system of treatment founded on his knowledge of anatomy and on observation. His fame having spread abroad, he travelled to Rome and became physician to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. According to Galen, the health of the body depended on an equal and uniform mixture of solids and liquids, and its sickness arose from their inequality; consequently, the physician should foresee illness. He was a profound student of anatomy in his early career, and afterwards turned his attention to physiology. His views as to inflammation, intermittent fevers, and his system of antipathies and sympathies, place him very much above his predecessors.

“In the beginning of the fifth century,” says Lacroix, “the practice of medicine, like that of surgery, which was not yet a distinct branch, continued to be free without any authorisation being required. There were even women who, like the Druidesses of the Gauls, treated the sick.” Charmers, unconscious, no doubt, of the occult forces which they set to work, attempted to cure neuralgic pains, country bone-setters to mend fractured limbs, while oculists and impostors of the worst kind travelled the country.

It was not until the close of the eighth century that a regular course of medical instruction was founded, the first of the kind being organised at Salerno, in the kingdom of Naples.

Alexander of Tralles, a noted physician, flourished in the middle of the sixth century. No Greek doctor equalled him since the days of Hippocrates in regard to his knowledge of his art in those primitive days. He is said to have possessed to a high degree the art of diagnosis, and he laid down as a principle, that no decision should be arrived at as to the treatment of a case until the specific causes of disease had been carefully considered. His depreciation of violent aperients, his views on melancholia and gout, and his generally common-sense treatment, stamped him as a man of superior attainments and ability. He was the first to resort to bleeding from the jugular vein, and to use iron in certain diseases affecting the blood.

It must not be imagined that the Roman practitioners of medicine were ill-paid, for it is recorded that Stertimus made some £6500 a year, and Canie, a surgeon, is said to have received £2000 for one operation, which contrasts well with fees of modern times. Votive offerings for health to the Roman deities were frequent, and sometimes consisted of land, animals, coin, jewellery, and other articles. Other bribes which have been discovered near ancient shrines are terra-cotta figures of deities, human beings, animals, and also portions of human anatomy, such as the liver or stomach. This superstition still exists, and is practised in many parts of Italy, the peasants making votive offerings similar to those of two thousand years ago.

The object of offering models of various portions of the body to special deities, was doubtless to propitiate the god to heal that special part in which the patient believed his complaint originated.

This custom of making offerings to the gods, called donaria by the Romans, originated at a very early period. They often took the form of land, buildings, cattle, tools of trade, jewellery, and cast-off clothes. Thus the temple of Artemis Brauronia was filled with women’s clothing. In the temples of the healing gods, instruments of surgery, pharmaceutical appliances, painted tablets representing miraculous healings, and great numbers of models of various parts of the human frame, composed of metal, stone, and terra-cotta, were deposited.

Many of these ancient temples of healing were magnificent buildings with richly-decorated interiors, while others were simply shrines or grottos at the source of some hot spring or mineral water, where hundreds of those afflicted with various ailments flocked to bathe or drink the water. The priests in charge regulated the use of the waters and prescribed for the patients. After completing the course it was customary for the patient to throw an offering into the water, in the form of a silver cup, a coin, or some terra-cotta model of a limb, and then drag himself off, muttering a prayer. Others would hang their gifts on the walls, or deposit them at the feet of the statues of the gods placed around.

Magnificent offerings, such as goblets of valuable metal with votive inscriptions, have been occasionally found, and other ornaments of gold and silver. It is said, however, that donaria of precious metals were after a time melted down and disposed of by the priests.

Grateful patients or surgeons sometimes offered surgical instruments as a thanksgiving for a successful surgical operation; thus it is stated Erostratus offered to Apollo in the Temple of Delphus a forceps of lead, to show how little he approved of the fingers as a medium for extracting teeth. Drs. Sambon, Allaire, and others, who have discovered a large number of donaria of the Etruscan and Roman period, found among the pottery, invalid feeding-cups and feeding-bottles for infants. Many of the latter were modelled in the form of the female breast, and others in the shapes of animals. These articles were often placed in the tombs of young children who had died in babyhood, instead of the dishes of various foods which were deposited in the tombs of adults.

Among other donaria discovered, are models of the limbs and viscera of the human body in clay, showing upon them the marks of the various diseases from which the votaries had suffered. Thus the ancient temples must have presented a curious appearance, festooned on walls and ceilings with these numerous models, all of which told a tale of human suffering.

CHAPTER V.
THE EARLY AGE OF GREEK AND ROMAN PHARMACY.

Rome at an early period gave birth to several philosophers and practitioners in the art of healing. Cornelius Celsus, who is thought to have been a Roman, was a much esteemed writer of the time, and his works on medicine show the advanced state of surgery and medicine during the Roman Empire.

His work on medicine gives a considerable insight into the pharmacy of the Romans in his day. With reference to their weights, he says: “I would have it understood that in an ounce is contained the weight of seven denarii; next, that I divide each denarius into six parts, that is, sextantes, so that I have the same quantity in the sextans of a denarius that the Greeks have in their obolus”.

Of the methods of administration employed in early Roman pharmacy, the malagma was commonly used. It was a kind of soft mass composed of herbs and grass beaten up to the consistency of a thick paste, and applied to the skin. Numerous formulæ for malagmas are given, in which pellitory, myrrh, resin, cardamoms, ammoniacum, galbanum, etc., are included. Their malagmas corresponded with our ointments. They also used plasters, of which the basilicon, of galbanum, pitch, resin, and oil, in an improved form, has survived two thousand years. Troches, for healing wounds, were composed of dry medicines held in suspension by some liquid such as wine or oil. Pessaries (vaginal) were originated by the Greeks, who called them pessi. The ingredients were placed in a piece of wool, and thus used. Powders and snuffs were also common methods of administration.

Antidotes for bruises, bites, and poisons were regarded as extremely important. One was called ambrosia, which Zopyrus is said to have compounded for the King Ptolemy; another was the celebrated antidote of King Mithridates.

The Greeks called their embrocations or ointments euchrista. The catapotia was the method used for internal administration in liquid form, for which many recipes are given by Celsus. The following will serve as an example:—

Athenio’s Catapotia for a Cough.
Myrrh, pepper, each	p. i.
Castor, poppy tears, each	p. i.

which are bruised separately and afterwards mixed.

For venomous bites, the treatment of the ancients, if the wound was severe, was first cupping, or, if slight, the plaster of Diogenes was applied, or a salt fish bound over the wound. A curious remedy practised by the Greeks for hydrophobia was to throw the patient suddenly into a pond, and “if he could not swim let him sink several times, and thus drink; if he can swim, keep him down at times until he may be satiated with water, for thus at once,” writes Celsus, “is both the thirst and the dread of water removed”.

Their antidote for nearly all poisons was warm oil, given in order to induce vomiting.

The word collyrium, now applied to a lotion for the eyes, was also used by the ancients; but they gave it a greater latitude, and also employed it to describe a composition of powders wrought to a pasty consistence with a liquid, and formed into something like a tent for insertion into cavities.

Of the chemical bodies and drugs known both to the Greeks and the Romans, the number is not a few.

Cinnabar, which seems to have been known from a very remote period, was the name applied to the red sulphide of mercury, and also to dragon’s blood. It is doubtless of the latter Pliny says “he believed to be the gore of a dragon crushed by the weight of a dying elephant, with a mixture of the blood of these animals”. Copperas, lead, alum, copper, and iron were used as styptics.

Myrrh, frankincense, cardamoms, linseed, isinglass, and cobwebs were used as astringents.

Galbanum, storax, bitumen, are recommended for promoting suppuration, while pennyroyal, sulphur, pellitory, stavesacre, ox-gall, scammony, rue, and opium were all included in their medical recipes.

Dioscorides was the first to attempt to record in anything like a methodical manner the many drugs and chemical substances used by the early Greeks.

Pedacion Dioscorides, born in Anazaba in Cilicia, was a Greek physician, who lived in or about the second century. He gathered a great portion of his information on materia medica during his travels with the Roman army, which he accompanied on several expeditions in the capacity of physician. Afterwards he wrote his great work Peri Hules Iatrikes (about materia medica), which for fifteen centuries or more remained one of the chief authorities on that science. It treats of all the medicines then in use, with their preparations and action as then known. The work of this early physician first appeared in a Latin translation in 1478; the first Greek edition being published in 1499. The work was afterwards translated into Spanish, Italian, French, German, and Arabic.

PEDACION DIOSCORIDES.

From a drawing, 1598.

In describing the Papaver sativum and its virtues in this work, he says: “It is not improper to subjoin the method in which the opus or juice of it is collected. Some, then, cutting the poppy heads with the leaves, squeeze them through a press, and rubbing them in a mortar, form them into troches. This is called meconium, and is weaker than the opus. But whoever desires to gather the juice must proceed thus: After the heads are moistened with dew, let him cut round the * (asterisk) with a knife, but not penetrate through them, and from the sides cut straight lines in the surface, and draw off the tear that flows with his finger into a shell. And come again, not long after, for it will be found standing upon it; and the day following it will be found in the same manner.” Hence the old name poppy tears. Dioscorides was also learned in the preparation of wool fat, which he calls œsypum, known to modern pharmacists as lanoline. He says: “Œsypum is the oily part collected from sordid wool, thus: The wool was washed in warm water and all its sordes expressed; the fat floated with a froth, and upon throwing in some sea-water it subsided; and when all the œsypum was obtained from it in this manner, it was purified by repeated affusions of water. When pure it had no sharp taste, and was in some degree astringent and appeared white, and was emollient and filled up ulcers.”

Recent excavations made at Pompeii and Herculaneum have thrown some further light on various articles of materia medica as it existed in the days just preceding the destruction of those cities. Aloe seems to have been held in high esteem by the practitioners of the time, and was employed, we learn from the historian, in twenty-nine diseases. It was prescribed in doses from 1 to 111 drachmas (about 68 grains), and mixed with wine was employed to stimulate the growth of the hair. Aconite, we find, was used in four diseases; and was supposed to be an antidote to any poison which might exist in the system. Other remedies mentioned include gum acacia, colocynth, elaterium, gold, silver, copper, and elecampane. It is further recorded of the latter drug, that Julia Augusta, daughter of Augustus Cæsar, used to eat the root daily.

Of the vegetable remedies about 150 are enumerated, and of these the cabbage seems to have held a prominent place. Other favourite medicines were rye, garlic, anise, mallow, rose, and lily.

In the animal kingdom, the remedies contributed were numerous, being mainly the various parts of man and beast. Among some of the least disgusting, hair, blood, and saliva may be mentioned.

Scrapings from the bodies of athletes, mixed with the oil with which they anointed themselves, were used as a tonic. The hair of a man torn from the cross was used as a remedy for quartan fever. The hyæna was employed as a medicinal agent in seventy-nine diseases; and the crocodile, chameleon, lion, elephant, camel, and the hippopotamus all contributed certain curative agents. Wool fat was held in great esteem.

Of minerals, iron, lead, nitrum, salt, gold, tin, silver, realgar, copper, and misy (a combination of the sulphates of copper and iron) are enumerated. Most of these articles are mentioned by the second Pliny, who was killed during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius which buried Pompeii.

CHAPTER VI.
ALCHEMY—THE ALCHEMISTS.

The word chemistry was used for the first time by Suidas, a lexicographer of the tenth century, and at that time meant an alloy of gold and silver. It is alluded to in connection with the Emperor Diocletian, of whom it is said, that irritated by a revolt of the Egyptians against the laws of the empire, he had all their books of chemistry committed to the flames, so as to punish them for their rebellion by preventing them from carrying on the lucrative business arising out of the melting and working of precious metals. There is little doubt the Egyptians and Greeks were acquainted with certain chemical operations, or what was termed the hermetic science, which was afterwards called alchemy in the first century of the Christian era.

The first two great lights that appeared were Al-Chindus, and Geber who discovered the red oxide and bichloride of mercury, nitric acid, hydrochloric acid, and nitrate of silver. Geber’s Summa Perfectionis and Liber Philisophorum embody his researches on the purification and malleability of metals. In the ninth century, the Arab alchemist Rhazes flourished. In his great work entitled El Hharvi, he alludes to realgar, orpiment, borax, mixtures of sulphur and iron with copper, and of mercury with acids, and arsenic. He further recommends physicians to use alcoholic preparations and animal oils, etc. He states: “The secret art of chemistry is nearer possible than impossible; the mysteries do not reveal themselves except by force of labour and perseverance. But what a triumph it is when man can raise a corner of the veil which conceals the works of God!” The knowledge displayed of chemistry and its application to the arts at that early period is wonderful, but books were few. The chief evidence of this knowledge is exhibited in the many specimens and art monuments in the museums of Spain, showing the skill of the Saracens and of the Moors.

A little later Mesué states, “certain principles had been recognised as to the analytical classification of the bodies which compose organic matter”.

Of the ancient necromancers who have figured in history and romance, Merlin was perhaps the most extraordinary. The earliest mention of his name is in records of the eleventh century, although he appears to have flourished about the time of the Saxon invasion of Britain, in the latter part of the fifth century.

He is first mentioned in connection with the fortune of Vortigern, who is represented by Geoffrey of Monmouth, as at that time King of England. Vortigern having lost all his strongholds in his struggle with the Saxons, at length consulted his magicians as to how he was to defend himself from his troublesome foe. They advised him to build an impregnable tower, and chose a suitable site for its erection. The builders set to work with might and main, but were astonished to find, that as fast as they built in one day, the next morning the earth had swallowed it up, and not a vestige remained. So the king called the wise men together again, when they arrived at the conclusion that the only way to remedy the matter was to cement the walls of the tower with the blood of a human being who was born of no human father.

Vortigern at once sent forth emissaries to scour the country in search of this rara avis, and at length by good fortune they came across Merlin, near the town of Caermarthen in Wales, who claimed that his mother was the daughter of a king but his father was an angelic being. The king’s emissaries evidently took his word for it, as they speedily carried him before Vortigern. A great meeting of the magicians was called, at which the king presided, and Merlin, instead of being condemned as the victim, confounded the wise men, and told the king the ground they had chosen for his tower had a lake beneath it, at the bottom of which, on being drained, they would find two dragons of inextinguishable hostility. Under the form of dragons he appears to have figured the Britons and Saxons in his speech, “all of which,” the historian tells us, “proved to be true”.

But the greatest exploit with which Merlin is credited, according to tradition, is the erection of Stonehenge as a lasting monument to the 300 British nobles massacred by the Saxons. It is supposed that these mighty stones had been originally set up in Africa, and from thence were transported to Ireland. Merlin commanded that they should be carried over the sea, and erected on Salisbury Plain; but no workman could be found to move them. He therefore brought his magical power to bear on the huge stones, and by this means they were caused to take the form in which they now stand.

Of the other wonderful stories which romance has woven round the career of this strange individual, we can only say they are interesting, if not exactly true. As 600 years elapsed between the time of Merlin and the earliest known records of his achievements, it is impossible to pronounce on their veracity.

Among the more famous of the early alchemists was St. Dunstan, who flourished in the tenth century; but, if tradition speaks truly, he was anything but a saint in character. He is said to have been a man of distinguished birth, who in his young days lived a life of great self-indulgence, even for that period of peculiar morality. At length, he was seized with a dangerous illness which threatened to terminate his career; but at the last extremity an angel appeared, bringing a medicine which speedily restored him to health. Hastening to the nearest church to return thanks, he was stopped by the devil with a pack of black dogs, whom however he speedily put to flight. In order to expiate his former irregularities, he now secluded himself in the abbey of Glastonbury, where he occupied a cell in which he could neither stand upright nor stretch his limbs in repose, and mortified his flesh exceedingly. Here he studied alchemy and magic, in which arts he soon became well versed. While in this cell, he is said to have had the most extraordinary visitations, and among others the devil was constantly thrusting his head in at the window and taunting the saint, while immersed in his studies. At length, one day, wearied out, Dunstan lost all patience, and seizing his red-hot tongs from the little furnace in which he conducted his chemical operations, caught the devil by the nose, and held him firmly, “while the bellowings of Satan,” says the historian, “filled the whole neighbourhood for many miles round”. This incident is frequently represented in ancient carvings.

Dunstan was a Benedictine monk, and next came forth and took a prominent part in political and religious matters. He seems to have been the king-maker of his time, and took a prominent part in the ruling of the kingdom during the reigns of Edwy and Edgar.

In the accompanying illustration the alchemist, with uplifted torch, is repeating the specified incantation over the still, under which he has just kindled a fire, having commenced the preparation of the “Elixir of Life”.

AN ALCHEMIST.

From an engraving dated 1576.

In the year A.D. 1260, Albertus Magnus, formerly a Dominican monk, was made master of the sacred palace at the court of Rome, and afterwards Bishop of Ratisbon. This great philosophical student was learned in all the then known arts of chemistry, and his manuscripts and works were copied by the thousand. All kinds of extraordinary powers were attributed to him, and it was commonly stated that he could make gold, and that he was a magician. Accused of “having dealings” with the evil one, he resigned his high position and returned to his cloistered cell to carry on his favourite researches and end his days. Next we come to Vincent de Beauvais, often called the Pliny of the middle ages. He, too, was accused of sorcery, and it is said that “at midnight people would creep along the quays of the Seine towards his laboratory in St. Chapelle yard, to see if they could get a glimpse reflected in the river of the magic furnaces in which De Beauvais was supposed to evoke his familiar spirit”.

About the same time Raymond Lulli became known to fame. He also was a monk, and born in the island of Majorca, but having a roving disposition he wandered over Europe. He wrote several works on alchemy, among others Libilli Aliquot Chemici, etc. Fabulous stories are related of his adventures; and he was cruelly stoned to death by the populace in Tunis, in 1315. He left behind him a following of believers, who called themselves Lullists and spread all over Europe. The genius of the West at this time was Arnauld de Villeneuve, who made several important discoveries in chemistry. His researches were particularly directed to the relation of chemistry to medicine. He is credited with having discovered sulphuric and other acids, and is said to have been the first to distil alcohol or spirit of wine.

Contemporary with these men of learning was our own Roger Bacon, whose love for his art nearly cost him his life, besides many years in prison. The discoverer of gunpowder and the telescope spent most of his life in experimental researches, with the result that he revolutionised the art of war, and gave to astronomers the power of exploring the heavens. He was a man of great ability, never justly appreciated by his contemporaries, and has been rightly named the father of experimental physics. He described most of the laws which regulate matter, and the regular motion of the planets. Although a man of undoubted knowledge and great power of conception, he was bitten with the mania of endeavouring to discover the philosopher’s stone, his views respecting which he set forth in his work entitled Radix Mundi. Following Bacon came Antonio Quainer, of Pavia, who was the first to manufacture artificial mineral waters.

It has been said by some that the discoveries made by the alchemists were mainly the result of chance, and they were mostly ignorant charlatans; but although they had little method in their research, and a great deal of their knowledge was wrapped up in absurd and superstitious theories, when we look at the result of their discoveries up to the fifteenth century, the most prejudiced must admit that their labours were not spent entirely in vain. They demonstrated the existence of bismuth, liver of sulphur, and regulus of antimony, the distillation of alcohol, volatilisation of mercury, and preparation of aqua regia, sulphuric and other mineral acids, and the purification of alkalies. They had the scarlet dye for cloth, the secret of which has now been lost and cannot be equalled, and their processes of glass-staining cannot be approached by those employed at the present day. It is said that Eck, a German alchemist of Sultzbach, ascertained the existence of oxygen 300 years before it was demonstrated by Priestly. For these and other discoveries we have to thank the early alchemists.

During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries alchemy began to shake itself free from the wild theories and absurd practices which had impeded its progress. Henry VII. issued a severe edict against alchemical practices, which put a stop to the impositions of a number of charlatans. About this period John Baptist Porta discovered the means of reducing the metallic oxides and of colouring silver, and Isaac and Jean Hollandus made great improvements in enamelling, and demonstrated the manufacture of artificial gems.

From the time of Paracelsus and the introduction of printing, the science received a fresh impetus, and a new order of chemists came into being, whose conflict with the old order for many years is a matter of history.

The old theories of the alchemists were gradually exploded and superseded, and many were driven to the most flagrant quackery to earn a living.

Cornelius Agrippa, who was one of the leaders of the new order, says: “It would take too much time to recount all the follies, the idle secrets, and the enigmas of this trade, of the green lion, the fugitive stag, the flying eagle, the inflated toad, the crow’s head of the black blacker than the black, of the seal of Mercury, of the mud of wisdom, and other countless absurdities of the time. Many of them travelled from fair to fair in order to make a little money by the sale of white lead, vermilion, antimony, and other drugs used by women for painting the face, and drugs which the Scripture calls ointments of lust.” Meanwhile the efforts of the practical workers were encouraged by administrators and princes, with the result that the application of chemistry and the technical arts became predominant, and metallurgy the leading spirit of the science.

A notable character in the time of Queen Elizabeth was Dr. Dee, alchemist and astrologer. The career of this man, who was more a charlatan than aught else, was one of extraordinary vicissitude. A Welshman by birth, he was educated at Oxford, and then travelled throughout Europe, claiming that he had discovered the elixir of life and the philosopher’s stone. He was a man of overweening ambition, and delighted to hear himself called “Most Excellent”. In company with a man named Kelly, it is said he discovered a quantity of the elixir in the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey; this they at once annexed and carried off to Poland, accompanied by a nobleman of that country. After travelling from one Court to another, where he is said to have performed wonderful feats with his elixir, he returned to England and settled at Mortlake, where Elizabeth often visited him to consult him on astrology, and he even ventured to predict her death.[3] He was a great favourite at Court in 1595, and the Queen made him Chancellor of Paul’s and Warden of Manchester, but he died in great poverty.

AN ALCHEMIST.

From an engraving dated 1576.

The illustration represents an alchemist of the sixteenth century in an ante-room of his laboratory, engaged in fixing a portion of his apparatus. On the table is his luting box and knife. Through one window a view of the laboratory with stills of varied size is obtained, while through the other the sun looks with becoming gravity on the operation.

The Symbols of the Alchemists.

As in modern science chemists write their formulæ and work out their processes by means of symbols, so the alchemists used signs and hieroglyphics to represent the then known elements, metals, and other articles in common use. The so-called elements—fire, air, water, earth—were represented by special symbols, here represented. The metals were supposed to be influenced by the planets to a certain degree, and were represented by their corresponding signs. Various other articles also had their symbols, which served as a means of shorthand at a period when caligraphy was little known or employed.

Symbols for: Fire. Air. Water. Earth. Lead. Tin. Iron. Gold. Copper. Mercury. Silver. Antimony. Arsenic. Aqua Vitæ. Borax. To Purify. Cinnabar. Caput Mortuum. An Oil. Saltpetre. A Magnet. Sal Ammoniac. Sulphur. Tartar. A Covered Pot. To Sublime. To Precipitate.

Symbols for: Spirit of Wine. Roman Symbol for Denarius. To Digest. To Distil. Aqua Fortis. Aqua Regalis. A Brick. To Calcine. Camphire. Ashes. Cerusse. Lime. Quicklime. Cinnabar. Wax. Hartshorn. A Crucible. Crystal. A Gum. Oil. Steel Filings. Litharge.

Symbols for: To Lute. Sublimated Mercury. Precipitated Mercury. Nitre. Realgar. Sand. Soap. Sal Alkali. Sal Ammoniac. Salt. Talc. Vinegar. Verdigris. Vitriol. Urine. Day. Night.

CHAPTER VII.
THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE.

The dominating ambition of the early alchemists was to discover the unknown. In the same spirit the modern worker in science gropes onward, and dreams of discovering some contribution towards solving the elixir of life, in the form, it may be, of conquering at least one fell disease. The ancient workers in alchemy confined their researches almost exclusively to metals; they believed that all natural things were composed of four elements, which they termed Fire, Air, Earth, and Water. “When these four elements are conjoined,” says Roger Bacon, in his Radix Mundi, “they become another thing, whereas it is evident that all things in Nature are composed of the said elements being altered and changed.”

But the patient researches of the alchemists were not so much due to a love for scientific investigation as to the overwhelming desire to gain wealth.

A STILL FOR DYSTILLING THE WATER OF LYFE.

1576.

The majority had two fixed objects in view as the goals of their ambition, one being the discovery of some body that would be capable of transmuting the baser metals into gold and silver; and the other, the discovery of an elixir which would prolong the span of human life to an indefinite period. Both these objects seem to have been sought for by man from prehistoric times, and their origin is lost in antiquity. Berthelot remarks that the term “Philosopher’s Stone” does not occur in writings earlier than the seventh century, although the central idea is much more ancient.

The philosopher’s stone was sought for by the Chinese philosophers at a very remote period, afterwards by the Greeks, Arabs, and others down to the seventeenth century.

Men of undoubted ability and genius wasted both their lives and their fortunes over the search for this illusive chimera, and others condescended to fraud and trickery of the meanest description in its pursuit. Apparently no alchemist of any repute thought it right to die until he had at least claimed to have solved one of these great problems. Thus claimants to the discovery were numerous. The descriptions given of the various processes in ancient manuscripts and works for producing the philosopher’s stone are usually of a very elaborate description, and couched in the most fantastic language.

Failure to produce the desired result was invariably accounted for by the omission to carry out some minute detail. Some who professed to have discovered the secret demanded large sums of money to reveal it, and several visited the various courts of Europe to demonstrate it by means of trickery and conjuring.

The notorious Dr. Dee, who flourished in the time of Queen Elizabeth, was one of the last claimants to the discovery, and is said to have received immense sums of money from dupes for imparting the coveted secret, which he demonstrated by means of an ingenious trick.

Realgar, mercury, sulphur, and many other substances were credited with the magical property of transmutation.

In the illustration (p. [65]), which is taken from an authentic engraving of the sixteenth century, we have a figure of the apparatus used for distilling the “Water of Life,” the process for which is described by Gesnerus in the Newe Jewell of Health, printed in 1576. The alchemist, arrayed in his imposing robes, is depicted giving instructions to his assistant as to certain precautions to be taken in conducting the process.

Bacon states that sulphur and mercury are the mineral roots and natural principles upon which Nature herself acts and works in the mines and caverns of the earth; the latter metal he believed to be the true elixir of the philosopher’s stone; others, including Rhazes and Merlin, believed it to be an amalgam of gold and mercury, fantastically called the Red man and his White wife.

Concerning the vessels for producing this “Citrine body,” as Bacon calls it, the most exact precautions were taken. Special apparatus was used, and a special heat, which was not to exceed the heat of the body. For this purpose horse-dung was employed. Senier, the philosopher, says: “Dig a sepulchre and bury the woman (mercury) with her man (gold) in horse-dung, the fire of the philosopher, until such time as they be conjoined”.

Bacon’s definition of alchemy was: “Alchymie is the art or science teaching how to make or generate a certain kind of medicine which is called the elixir. It teaches how to transmute all kinds of metals, one with another; and this by a proper medicine.” George Ripley, a monk, in 1476, thought that he had discovered the much-coveted stone in pure sulphur. He says: “Let the two sulphurs, viz., the white and the red, be mingled with the oil of the white elixir that they may work the more strongly, and you shall have the highest medicine in the world to heal and cure human bodies, and to transmute the bodies of metals into the most pure fine gold and silver”. Berthelot, who has made an exhaustive study of the subject, comes to the conclusion that the doctrines of alchemy concerning the transmutation of metals, did not originate in the philosophical views of the constitution of matter as generally supposed, but in the practical experiments of goldsmiths occupied in making fraudulent substitutes for the precious metals. One cannot but think with pity of the immense labour expended and lost in the attempt made by many of these pioneers of science in their pursuit after this chemical chimera.

Paracelsus, as well as his predecessors, laboured studiously to discover some method for prolonging life. Like Bacon and Verulam, he maintained that the human body could be rejuvenated to a certain extent by a fresh supply of vitality, and it was his aim to find means by which such a supply could be obtained. In one of his works he gives the following reasons for this belief: “Metals may be preserved from rust and wood may be protected against rot. Blood may be preserved a long time if the air is excluded. Egyptian mummies have kept their form for centuries without undergoing putrefaction. Animals awaken from their winter sleep, and flies having become torpid from cold become nimble again when they are warmed. Therefore, if inanimate objects can be kept from destruction, why should there be no possibility to preserve the life-essence of animate forms?” For this purpose he prepared a remedy he called Primum Ens Melissæ, which was made by dissolving pure carbonate of potass, and macerating in the liquid the fresh leaves of the melissa plant. On this absolute alcohol was poured several times in successive portions to absorb the colouring matter, after which it was collected, distilled, and evaporated to the thickness of a syrup. The second great secret elixir of Paracelsus was his Primum Ens Sanguinis. This was prepared by mixing blood from the medium vein of a healthy young person, and digesting it in a warm place with twice its quantity of alcahest, after which the red fluid was to be separated from the sediment, filtered, and preserved.

The alcahest was his celebrated universal medicine, and was considered the greatest mystery of all. It was made with freshly prepared caustic lime and absolute alcohol. These were distilled together ten times. The residue left in the retort was mixed with pure carbonate of potass and dried. This was again distilled with alcohol. It was then placed in a dish and set on fire, and the residue that remained was the alcahest.

The following lines were found inscribed on the fly-leaf of an old work on alchemy, printed in 1550, and signed “Philo Veritas”:—

ELIXIR VITÆ.
When fire and water, earth and air
In love’s true bond united are,
For all diseases then be sure
You have a safe and certain cure.
I will affirm it’s here alone
Exists the Philosophic Stone.
This is fair nature’s virgin root,
Thrice blest are they who reap the fruit:
But oh! where one true adept’s found,
Ten thousand thousand cheats abound.

In an ancient work in the library of York Minster, the writer came across the following in manuscript, signed “Raymund Lulli”:—

Remember man that is the most noble creature in composition that ever God wrought;
In whom be four elements proportioned by nature,
A neutral mercuriallyte which costeth right naught,
Out of his monie by manie it is bought;
And our monie be not all but our oxtalle towe,
Of the sun and the moon; which Raymund Said So.

CHAPTER VIII.
THE BLACK ART AND OCCULT SCIENCES.

To make a thorough analysis of this interesting subject, and trace the origin of magic, would take much more space than we have at our command; and we can only mention a few of the many forms which may be grouped under the head of the occult sciences, and those especially which had any connection with the alchemists. There is little doubt that most of the alchemists were students, if not practitioners, of magic or some of its branches.

The antiquity of magic is very great; and we have record of magicians and wise men in early Jewish times, as well as the magic formulæ of the Vedas in India, as handed down to us in the religion of the Hindoos. Moreover, magic was practised by the Chaldeans, of whom a certain tribe devoted their energies to studying the occult sciences. Pliny tells us of the dealings in the supernatural in the time of Homer, and other writers record that magic was also known to the Etruscans and Assyrians at a very early period. As time rolled on, the different forms of magic practised became specialised, according to their several natures. For instance, there were Astrology and Oneiromancy, which comprised the various forms of divination; Theurgy and Goetry, the art of evoking good or evil spirits; Necromancy, by means of which communication was held with the dead; and Sorcery, which exercised its power by the influence of dreams.

The longings after the supernatural and unknown felt by the great ignorant masses brought forth individuals in plenty to take advantage of their credulity. During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the occult sciences were openly taught in the universities and schools, and 200 years later reached the zenith of their influence; and practitioners of astrology and the black arts abounded and flourished throughout Europe.

The professors of Oneiromancy were those who divined or interpreted dreams, and founded their traditions in the art from its being in accordance with the Scriptures. The explanation of dreams also did not go counter to the doctrines of the Church, and so the cult found many believers among all classes of society. It was denounced by Pope Gregory II. as a detestable practice; but this did not prevent it being largely employed in forecasting the future.

Arnauld de Villeneuve, who wrote a work on the subject in the thirteenth century, gives a certain code by which those who practised it worked.

Whoever dreamt that his hair was thick and carefully curled would soon become wealthy. If anything was wrong with the hair, evil was betokened. It also foreshadowed harm if a wreath was worn composed of flowers that were not in season. Other codes signified that to dream of the eyes, related to children; the head, to a father; the arms, to brothers; the feet, to servants; the right hand, to the mother, to sons, and to friends; and the left hand, to the wife and daughter. Another method was founded on the theory that whatever was dreamt of, the antithesis or opposite would follow in life. From this we have probably the saying common to-day, “dream of a wedding and it is a sign of a funeral”. According to many old writers there was scarcely any important event in the middle ages which was not announced by a dream.

The day before Henry II. was struck by the blow of a lance during a tournament, Catherine de Medicis, his wife, dreamt that she saw him lose one of his eyes. Three days before he fell by the knife of Jacques Clément, Henry III. dreamt he saw the royal insignia stained with blood and trodden under foot by monks and people of the lower orders.

Henry IV. also, before he was murdered by Raveillac, it is said, heard during the night his wife Marie de Medicis say to herself as she woke, “Dreams are but falsehoods!” and when he asked her what she had dreamt, she replied, “That you were stabbed upon the steps of the little Louvre!” “Thank God it is but a dream,” rejoined the king.

The necromancers, who were supposed to be able to conjure up spirits and raise the dead, were accounted on a somewhat higher plane than the interpreters of dreams. They also based their authority on the Old Testament. The nature of the art was gruesome and awe-inspiring, and there is little doubt many dark deeds were perpetrated by those who practised it. One method of evocation was to kill a child and place its head upon a dish surrounded by lighted candles; the desired spirit was supposed to enter this ghastly object and speak through its mouth. Sometimes the spirit simply consisted of some muttered words from behind a curtain in a dark cellar; another method was to cause the appearance of a sepulchral figure out of smoke or vapour, which would indicate by gesture and reply to questions asked. To evoke a dead man’s spirit, it was necessary to go to the grave at midnight with a companion who bore a candle in the left hand and a crystal stone in the right, the conjurer holding a hazel wand with the name of God written on it, and repeating the words:—

“Tetragrammaton + Adonai + Agla + Craton +”

Then striking three times on the ground, with a prayer he commanded the spirit into the stone, when it appeared in the shape of a child.

The conjurer often wore a girdle of lion’s skin with the name of God written on it, and the Solomon’s circle he described with a bright knife, on the blade of which were written certain mystic words. Necromancy gradually merged into sorcery, which has occasionally come to the surface in comparatively recent years.

Chiromancy, the art of divining or foretelling future events from marks on the palm of the hand, was also practised in antiquity, but in mediæval times it was strongly opposed by the Church. The practice is supposed to have been brought into Europe from the East by the Bohemians in the early part of the fifteenth century. This art eventually merged into astrology, which exerted the greatest influence of all the occult sciences.

The antiquity of astrology is very great, it having been originated by the Chaldeans, and was thought by some of the Jews to have been a method by which the Creator could communicate with His people. The art itself was based on astronomy, and, like alchemy, was the beginning of the study of real natural science. The teller of the stars was not only supposed to foretell forthcoming misfortunes to individuals, but also to forecast the destinies of kings and empires.

The belief in its power was so great that it became the fashion among royal personages of the sixteenth century to keep their own special astrologers, who were lodged easy of access and loaded with honours and wealth. These men were mostly astute Jews well versed in the science of their time, and by means of their supposed powers they often played a very important part in the political affairs of the nation. Thus in the fifteenth century Rovigo, an astrologer of eminence, who is said to have perfected the astrolabe, was attached to the Court of King John II. of Portugal; and Simon Pharès figured at the Court of France in the time of Charles VIII. We must not forget to mention Cosmo Ruggieri, the Florentine astrologer and the confidant of Catherine de Medicis; also the celebrated Nostradamus, astrologer and trusted adviser of Charles IX. This extraordinary man played a prominent part in the history of his time, and was supposed to practise magic and alchemy as well as the healing art. He was consulted by the king in all positions of difficulty, and it is said became immensely wealthy. He died in 1566 at Salon, after having written several notable works.

CHAPTER IX.
THE ART OF FORETELLING.

The early theory of the art of foretelling by means of the stars, and casting horoscopes, was as follows: The seven planets then known, including the Sun, with the twelve figures of the Zodiac, comprised the astrological system. Each unit or body or nation was supposed to be governed or influenced by a certain star or constellation, and this power extended to all things connected with the person or nation. Thus, Saturn was supposed to influence life, sciences, and buildings; Jupiter—honour, wishes, and wealth; Mars—wars, persons, marriages, and quarrels; the Sun—hope, gain, and happiness; Venus—love and friendship; Mercury—fear, disease, debts, and commerce; the Moon—robberies, wounds, and dreams. The intrinsic quality was denoted by the planet. The Sun was regarded as favourable; Saturn, cold; Jupiter, temperate; Mars, ardent; Venus, fruitful; Mercury, inconstant; the Moon, melancholy. The days, colours, and metals also came under the same influences.

In casting a horoscope, the astronomer had first to observe if the time was propitious, and what planet was dominant in the heavens. Then, by means of calculations and diagrams, he would deduce the consequences from the position and bearing of the stars. The day was divided into four equal parts—the ascendant of the sun, the middle of the sky, the descending of the sun, and the lower part of the sky. These four parts of the day were subdivided into twelve distinct parts, which were called the twelve houses of the sun. It was of the greatest importance in drawing a horoscope to tell exactly in which “house” the star appeared. One can easily trace the connection of the influence attributed to the planets with the old Egyptian and Greek mythologies, and it can hardly be wondered at that the same system should have been brought to bear on medicine.

A favourite method of divination, especially with the sorcerers, was that of gazing into a beryl or crystal. For the proper performance of this ceremony a pure virgin or equally pure youth should be the gazer. The sorcerer, having repeated the necessary charms and adjurations, with the invocation suitable to the spirits he wished to consult, looked into a large beryl or crystal, wherein he saw the answer represented either by types or by figures, and sometimes it is said he might hear the spirit speak to him.

Vallancey states that in the Highlands of Scotland large crystals of somewhat oval shape were kept by the priests to work charms with, and that water poured on them was given to cattle as a preventive of disease. Dr. Dee was a famous conjurer with the crystal in the time of Queen Elizabeth.

Lilly describes these crystals as being the size of an orange, set in silver, surmounted with a cross, and engraved all round with the names of the angels—Raphael, Gabriel, and Uriel.

Among other charms practised was Dactylomancy, which was performed by means of a ring suspended by a thread in the centre of an earthenware or metal pitcher. The ring, which was supposed to have been made under the influence of a certain constellation, was swung from side to side of the vessel, and the sounds it made on touching were taken as predictions and oracles.

The art of divination by fire was called Pyromancy, and was performed by allowing a certain body to burn, the smoke from which, by its density and colour, forecast the future. A favourite medium for consulting this oracle was a donkey’s head roasted on hot coals.

Popular belief in mediæval times attributed anything unusual or beyond its understanding, to magic; so most of the early alchemists were believed to be magicians. Both Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon were accused of dealing in the black arts, one having to resign his bishopric of Cologne and retire to a monastery, and the other to the Franciscan cells in Paris, to free themselves from the charges of their accusers.

CHAPTER X.
BLACK MAGIC.

Geber, an alchemist of great repute in Arabia, was believed to possess the power of creating gold by magic. He was a man of undoubted learning and a skilful practitioner of his time, yet he was dubbed a sorcerer. He was said to possess all kinds of extraordinary implements; among others, a book of black magic which gave him full power over demons, and a brass idol which spoke oracles. On the day of his death, in 1003, the Evil One is supposed to have carried him off. James Iodoc, an Englishman, achieved considerable notoriety by claiming that he had succeeded in setting the demon in a magic ring. These men should not be confounded with the host of impostors and charlatans who simply preyed on the credulity of the people, but in those days all were judged alike. Most of the great mediæval alchemists dabbled in magic, and all agreed that to obtain the intervention of Satan in human affairs it was necessary to enter into a pact with him. Those who went to this length and became exponents of demonology, or the black art, were initiated with much solemnity.

Taking the Oath.

The oath to the demon had to be pronounced in the centre of a circle traced upon the ground, accompanied by the offer of some pledge, such as a garment of the noviciate. The edge of the circle was supposed to establish a mark which the demon could not cross. Heavy perfumes such as vervain, with burning incense and lighted tapers, always formed part of the ceremonial. The smoking brazier, which entered largely into the ritual, was believed to act upon the demons, and was constantly fed with all kinds of mysterious vegetable and animal substances, those that would produce most smoke being preferred. It is said that belladonna and opium were always used as ingredients in the incense, in order to produce a state of semi-stupor and influence the imagination.

The perfumes employed by the professors of the art had each a special significance, and were offered to some planet to form a link with the earth. A mixture of saffron, amber, musk, cloves and incense, together with the brain of an eagle and the blood of a cock, was offered to the Sun.

The white poppy and camphor burnt in the head of a frog, with the eyes of a bull and the blood of a goose, were dedicated to the Moon; while to Mars, sulphur was mixed with hellebore and euphorbium, together with the blood of a black cat and the brain of a crow, and then burnt.

One can imagine the horrible odour that would be caused by burning such articles as these; and, as the columns of smoke ascended, the half-stupefied and scared spectator fancied he saw the forms of writhing demons in the air.

Very curious properties were attributed to certain articles when thrown on live coals. Thus, if thunder and rain were required, the liver of a chameleon was said to produce it; while the gall of a cuttle-fish burnt with roses and aloes-wood was all that was necessary to induce an earthquake.

By burning coriander, parsley, hemlock, liquor of black poppy, giant fennel, red sandal-wood and henbane, almost any number of demons could be raised. Sorcerers of this class were called tempest-raisers.

With the witchcraft practised largely by women in mediæval times, we have not much to do; although belief in its influence was widespread during the middle ages. To bewitch an individual was to cause him gradually to die a mysterious death.

The process commenced at first with great secrecy, by modelling a figure of the intended victim in wax or clay. This having been done, a swallow was killed, and the heart placed under the right arm of the figure and the liver under the left. The effigy was next pricked all over with new needles, each prick being accompanied by the most terrible imprecations against the victim.

Another method was to make the figure of earth taken from a graveyard and mixed with dead bones. Certain mystic signs were then inscribed on it, which were said eventually to cause the death of the victim. So general did the practice of witchcraft become that no class of society was safe from accusation and suspicion, thousands perishing by the faggot and torture.

From the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, supernatural beliefs exerted a great influence on the people. One of the most celebrated trials of the time was that of the Duchess of Gloucester, who was accused of bewitching Henry VI. It transpired at the trial that she had instructed a priest, named Bolingbroke who practised necromancy, to bewitch the king; a sorceress named Marie Gardimain being also implicated. An effigy of the king in wax was discovered half-melted in front of a fire of dry plants, which had been gathered by moonlight in a graveyard. Bolingbroke the necromancer was hanged, Gardimain burnt, and the Duchess of Gloucester condemned to imprisonment for life.

The “evil eye” was another form of witchcraft, mostly practised by women. Visions or apparitions in the sky, foretelling some war or disaster, were firmly believed in by the Church, and caused great consternation. Fiery dragons appearing in the heavens were said to predict civil war; and we also read of pigs bearing royal crowns, and gory stars, all of which were doubtless caused by ordinary phenomena not understood at that time.

The appearance of the devil presiding at a sabbath or meeting of sorcerers is thus described by De Lancre: “He is seated in a black chair with a crown of black horns, two horns in his neck, and one on the forehead, which sheds light on the assembly; the hair bristling, the face pale and exhibiting signs of uneasiness, the eyes round, large, and fully opened, inflamed and hideous, with a goat’s beard. The neck and the rest of the body deformed, and in the shape of a man and a goat; the hands and the feet of a human being.”

The word witch is thought by some authorities to be derived from chausaph, which means a user of pharmaceutic enchantments, or an applier of drugs to magical purposes.

Witches sent storms and barrenness, drowned children, brought on ague, could kill with evil eye, slay with lightning, pass through key-holes, ride through the air on broom-sticks, and perform many other weird and wondrous things.

“They were generally old, blear-eyed, wrinkled dames,” says Scott, “ugly and crippled, frequently papists, and sometimes atheists; of cross-grained tempers and cynical dispositions.” They were often poisoners, and generally monomaniacs. Epilepsy and all diseases not understood by the physicians were set down to the influence of witches. They were said to make two covenants with the devil, one public and one private. Then the novices were presented to the devil in person, and instructed to renounce the Christian faith, tread on the Cross, break the fasts, joining hands with Satan, paying him homage, and yielding him body and soul. Some witches sold themselves for a term of years, and some for ever; then they kissed the devil, and signed their bond with blood, and a banquet ended the meeting; their dances being accompanied with shouts of “Ha, ha! devil, devil! Dance here, dance here! Play here, play here! Sabbath, sabbath!” Before they departed the devil was said to give them philtres and amulets. These women were usually hypochondriacs, often driven by despair and misfortune to confess any charge made against them.

CHAPTER XI.
SUPERSTITION AND ITS INFLUENCE ON MEDICINE.

Superstition is a belief in what is wholly opposite to the laws of the physical and moral world, and yet supposed to be attainable by supernatural agency.

The words incantation and charm seem to have been derived from the ancient practice of curing diseases by poetry and music. Democritus says that many diseases are capable of being cured by the sound of a flute when properly played. Marianus Capellus assures us also that fevers may be cured by suitable songs. Galen believed the sound of the flute efficacious in gout and epilepsy. Asclepiades actually employed the trumpet for the relief of sciatica, and tells us it is to be continued until the fibres of the part begin to palpitate, when the pain will vanish. What terrible visions might be conjured up if such remedies were used to-day.

The influence of superstition on medicine may be accounted for by the fact, that from the very first, ideas with regard to the action of drugs must have been combined with those concerning supernatural agencies, for the phenomena of nature in very early times were attributed to spirits. Diseases were supposed to be due to an evil spirit, therefore to cast the disease out was equivalent to curing it, and the methods used for this purpose were by no means always ineffective in curing disease.

Incantations and spells were generally used in addition to a real remedial agent, but the incantations usually got the credit for effecting the cure.

In early times superstition played an important part in the cure of disease, and it prevails to a certain extent to-day. “In the opinion of the ignorant multitude,” says Lord Bacon, “witches and impostors have always held a competition with physicians.”

There has ever been a peculiar propensity in the human mind to foster a belief in the supernatural, and perhaps more especially in respect to medicine on account of the obscurity and ignorance with which it was once surrounded. In early times almost every disease was attributed to punishment for evil-doing, the working of some demon, or the influence of the stars; hence the use of any article that was strange or rare as a remedy.

“The employment of precious stones for medicinal purposes,” writes De Boot, “arises from an Arab superstition which supposed them to be the residence of spirits.” They were first used as amulets, and then gradually came to be administered inwardly for various ailments.

“Mystery is the very soul of empiricism,” says Paris; “withdraw the veil, and the confidence of the patient instantly languishes.” A propensity to attribute every ordinary and natural effect to extraordinary and unnatural causes, is one of the striking characteristics of medical superstition.

The properties that herbs possessed were attributed by the old physicians to the planets which were supposed to influence them, and our medical men to this day head their prescriptions with a sign that originally meant an invocation to Jupiter, which is a surviving relic of this old superstitious practice. Another very curious fact with respect to medical superstition is, that many of the greatest philosophers were firm believers in it. Lord Bacon is said to have believed in the existence of a panacea that would prolong life beyond its natural term. He considered that the principal cause of death was the action of the external air in drying and exhausting the body, which he thought might be prevented by nitre; but although he took three grains of his favourite salt every morning for the last thirty years of his life, he died at the age of sixty-six. We have many customs at the present day which are a survival of the days of superstition, and few have any idea of their origin. The mother, when she hangs round the neck of her child the plaything known as a coral and bells, little imagines she is perpetuating an ancient superstitious practice. The soothsayers attributed many mystic properties to coral, and it was believed to ward off the evil eye, and drive away devils and evil spirits. For this purpose it was suspended from a child’s neck as an amulet. Pliny and Dioscorides greatly esteemed the medicinal properties of coral, and Paracelsus recommends that it should be worn around the necks of infants to keep away fits, sorcery, charms, and to serve as an antidote to poisons. The bells usually suspended to it were originally intended to frighten away evil spirits, and not to amuse the child alone.

Paris mentions a curious circumstance, viz., that the same superstitious belief should exist among the negroes of the West Indies, who affirm that the colour of coral is always affected by the state of health of the wearer, it becoming paler in disease.

But all the remedies that originated in superstition were not entirely useless. Some, whether by accident or not, had a natural power of efficacy, and led to discoveries of importance. In the time of James I., a powder known as the sympathetic powder of Sir Kenelm Digby had a great reputation for healing wounds. Whenever a wound had been inflicted, this powder was applied to the weapon which had caused it, which was also smeared with ointment and dressed two or three times a day. The wound itself was directed to be brought together and carefully bound up with clean linen rags, but above all to be let alone for seven days, at the end of which time it was generally found to be healed. This was, of course, said to be due to the wonderful properties of the sympathetic powder, instead of the fact of excluding the air from the part and not interfering with nature’s own healing powers. The mysterious sympathetic healing powder was afterwards said to be simply calcined green vitriol. The rust of the spear of Telephus, alluded to by Homer as a cure for the wounds which that weapon inflicted, was probably verdigris, and led to the discovery of its use as a surgical dressing.

The cures supposed to be performed by royal touch show the power of faith over desire, or mind over matter. The royal surgeons who introduced the patients to be touched for scrofula, doubtless took care to choose those who had a tendency to recover, and who, if left to nature, would probably have gradually recovered. Boswell says that Dr. Johnson, when thirty months old, was taken by his mother to London to be touched by Queen Anne, on the advice of Sir John Floyer, a physician of Lichfield.

From time immemorial the ignorant have had the most unbounded confidence in nauseous remedies, and it would seem as if the nastier and more disgusting the medicines were, the greater faith they had in them. The larger the price asked, the more implicit the faith seemed to be. The Collyrium of Danares, a famous quack eye lotion, was sold at Constantinople for £9 a bottle, and the elixirs sold by Paracelsus and Van Helmont brought extortionate prices. The doctrine of Signatories, as it was called, is of very great antiquity. It implied that every natural substance which possesses any medicinal virtues, indicates, by an obvious and well-marked external character, the disease for which it is a remedy. Thus the bloodstone was used to stop bleeding, on account of its marks resembling drops of blood. The root of the mandrake, on account of its resemblance to the human form, was used as a remedy for sterility. Turmeric was administered for jaundice, and poppies for diseases of the head. Another belief of the ancients was that all poisonous bodies possessed a powerful attraction for one another, and that “like would cure like”. The hair of a mad dog was worn as a charm to prevent hydrophobia, and the foot of the ape was used as a remedy for its bite. On the same principle we are solemnly assured that three scruples of the ashes of a witch, after she has been well and carefully burnt at the stake, is a sure protection against the evil effects of witchcraft.

Many ancient superstitions are so deeply rooted that they find believers among the educated at the present day. Take, for instance, the belief that many people have in the efficacy of red flannel. For sore throat, rheumatism, or swelling, they believe it will cure when flannel of no other colour will. This belief may be traced to the colour of the cloth often used in incantations, which was always red.

In some parts of the country a wedding-ring is still believed to be a universal cure for sore eyes.

A curious superstition is still practised in some parts of Wales for the cure of the complaint called shingles. The term for shingles in Welsh means “The Eagle.” It was supposed in ancient times that if a person ate of the flesh of the eagle he would never suffer from shingles, and his direct descendants down to the ninth generation could not contract it, and furthermore had the power transmitted to them of curing others so afflicted by blowing on them.

CHAPTER XII.
LOVE PHILTRES.

Love Philtres were administered for the purpose of inspiring affection or hatred. In very early times they were frequently used, concocted, and sold by the magicians or sorcerers, who often obtained large sums of money in exchange, from amorously-inclined gallants and maidens. They were composed of various extraordinary ingredients used in medicine at the time, and were either in the form of a powder, which was to be surreptitiously slipped into an article of food to be swallowed, or in a liquid for anointing the clothes or hands, and by things to be held in the mouth.

It is recorded that some sorcerers even used the Host, upon which they traced letters of blood. The following were also used in the preparation of philtres: the entrails of animals, feathers of birds, scales of fishes, parings of nails, powdered loadstones, and human blood.